Editor’s note: Kausik Datta, Ph.D. is postdoctoral research fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He works in immunology, specifically as related to two major mycoses (Aspergillosis and Cryptococcosis). Rationality and skepticism have been his long-standing interests, which led him into science- and evidence-based medicine. This is his first contribution to this blog.

Quackademic ‘Medicine’* is a collective of pseudoscientific, data-free, evidence-less, nonsensical therapeutic modalities (the so-called “alternative” therapies) – otherwise known as “complementary and alternative” medicine (CAM) or integrative or holistic medicine. These include, among other things, chelation therapy (for autism and cardiovascular diseases); chiropractic; use of random nutritional supplements; abuse of various prescription drugs; coffee enemas; naturopathy; homeopathy; reiki; energy healing that invokes manipulation of ‘life force’ or qi; acupuncture; ‘healing touch’, and intercessory prayer – the list goes on, since there is essentially no limit to human stupidity and no depth that the human mind cannot plumb.

Qualified professionals – those who are in the business of doing the hard work of science to gather critical evidence regarding the action of a therapy, as well as those who implement those modalities routinely and save lives – may perhaps find it easy to dismiss the proponents of quackademic medicine as an ill-informed, misguided, or downright lunatic, fringe. However, much like a bad case of household mold infestation, this community with its myrmidons continues to thrive and grow, impervious to reason, immune to evidence, unable to comprehend the danger they pose (and the harm they cause) to themselves, their children and millions of others on the planet. As discussed in the science blog Respectful Insolence, a large part of that harm derives from their promotion of unfounded (and repeatedly proven to be untrue) fears of vaccines causing autism, discouraging a lot of parents from vaccinating their children and prompting many of them to seek quack treatments (some of which are potentially dangerous) to try to ‘cure’ autistic
children. But still another part – a far more pernicious and pervasive one – has to do with the growing presence (and, it seems, acceptance) of quackademic pseudoscience in establishments of mainstream academic medicine.(more…)

The California (CA) Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) has an informational booklet on Acupuncture and Asian Medicine that besides depicting many New Age fantasies about prescientific medicine, also makes the unfounded claim that based on a 1997 consensus panel, the NIH formally “endorses” the use of acupuncture for a set of specific conditions, and that there is “clear evidence” that it is effective for some of them. This booklet is available at:

Wondering about this “clear evidence,” I wrote a letter a few months ago to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and asked for a clarification.

Their candid response explicitly stated that the CA booklet “misstates the purpose of the 1997 consensus panel on acupuncture.” The NCCAM also added that as a “Federal research agency, the NIH does not endorse any product, service or treatment, nor are NIH consensus documents statements of policy.”(more…)

Next Monday, the Nobel Foundation will announce the winner(s) of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In the following two days, two more Nobels will be revealed: in Physics and in Chemistry. Because of the success of last year’s inaugural Guess-A-Nobel Contest, we decided we’ll repeat this event annually until there is no more science worthy of the prize. This year we’re giving out three 8GB Apple iPod Touch devices to those who correctly guess in each of the three science categories. Because we profile a good deal of apps for the iPhone/Touch platform, we thought this might be a useful tool beside all the fun it can provide on the off time. Furthermore, if someone does manage to guess all three correctly, he or she will be getting the souped-up 64 GB version of the iPod device with all the trimmings.